Announcing Flex SDK 4.5, Flash Builder 4.5 and Flash Catalyst CS 5.5!

Just over one year after Flash Builder 4, Flex SDK 4 and Flash Catalyst CS 5.0 shipped, we are incredibly proud to announce Creative Suite 5.5 which includes Flash Builder 4.5, Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 and Flex SDK 4.5! Together, these three products bring developers and designers the premiere set of tooling workflows to rapidly design, develop and deploy rich applications on the web, desktop and now mobile smartphones and tablets!

Most notably, we are excited to introduce new capabilities in Flex to build applications for Google Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and Apple iOS. Flex SDK 4.5 adds new mobile components and capabilities into the core Flex framework to build performant, standalone applications running atop Adobe AIR. Additionally, Flash Builder 4.5 gives developers a full set of workflows to rapidly build, debug and deploy mobile applications built with Flex SDK 4.5 or pure ActionScript. You can learn all about the new mobile development features in Flex and Flash Builder 4.5 by reading Narciso (NJ) Jaramillo’s article on the Adobe Developer Center.

To get a high-level understanding of new Spark components added to Flex SDK 4.5 as well as broader improvements to the core Flex framework, check out Deepa Subramaniam’s overview. Similarly, grab a birds-eye view of all of the exciting development enhancements to Flash Builder 4.5 by reading Andrew Shorten’s introductory article here. And of course, take in all the new workflows enabled by Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 by reading Jacob Surber’s overview article here.

In addition to the exciting new mobile features and workflows added to Flex and Flash Builder, we focused on significantly improving productivity for developers and designers. For developers, we have made it much easier to write Flex and ActionScript code. Flash Builder 4.5 introduces dozens of new coding productivity features which rapidly accelerate the coding and testing of Flex and ActionScript projects. Whether you’re writing MXML or ActionScript, the new Flash Builder 4.5 coding features will make you write better code faster. To understand all of the new coding and productivity features in Flash Builder 4.5, regardless if you’re a Flex or pure-ActionScript developer, read Sameer Bhatt and Sreenivas Ramaswamy’s article on the ADC.

Additionally, we focused on building a robust bi-directional workflow between developers and designers. Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 introduces a new bi-directional workflow with Flash Builder 4.5 such that designers and developers can work together to create rich and visually expressive Flex components and applications. Check out Jacob Surber’s article to understand the new workflows introduced in Flash Catalyst CS 5.5.

It doesn’t stop there – we are proud to announce a new addition to our Flash Builder product family – Flash Builder for PHP! Co-developed in partnership with Adobe and Zend Technologies, Flash Builder for PHP provides the perfect development environment for building expressive applications with Flex and PHP for the web and mobile devices. To read up on all of the detailed workflows Flash Builder for PHP provides Flex and PHP developers, check out this overview article by Kevin Schroeder.

We are very excited with the wealth of new features and workflows available in this next release of the Flex product family. Please take advantage of all of these new features and workflows by pre-ordering the products today! To learn more about the pricing options for Flash Builder 4.5 (Standard Edition, Premium Edition, Standard PHP Edition and Premium PHP Edition) check out this handy Flash Builder Buying Guide. Additionally, you can pre-order Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 here.

We hope that you all have as much fun designing and developing applications with these new releases as we on the product teams did making them. And with that, go forth and build more apps!